A New TV Series from Julia Child's Old Kitchen in Provence

Today the Magnolia Network launched a seven-part "docu-series" called La Pitchoune: Cooking in France, about the Courageous Cooking School, set in Julia Child’s former home in the South of France. Episode #1 is now streaming on the Magnolia app, HBO Max, Discovery Plus and other channels. 

It's a great story! In 2015, Makenna Held happened on an article in the New York Times (“The House that Julia Built”) about La Pitchoune, the home that Julia and Paul Child created on a former potato patch in 1966. The land, on a peaceful hillside not far from Grasse, was owned by Simone (Simca) Beck and her husband Jean Fischbacher. Simca was Julia’s close friend and her collaborator on the Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volumes I and II.

The idea was that once Julia and Paul had no use for the house, they would return it to Simca and Jean. In the meantime, it quickly become the Childs' cherished getaway and a magnet for food world luminaries such as James Beard, MFK Fisher and Richard Olney.

And now it was up for sale--listed with Sotheby's at €880,000--and back in the US, Makenna was completely smitten. “I fell in love with the heart cut-out shutters, the gorgeous ivy walls, and OF COURSE the kitchen,” she remembers.

Remarkably, Julia’s kitchen (with its now-famous pegboard system that Paul Child designed) was still largely intact “since the last meal she cooked there, a typically Provençale boeuf en daube, in 1992,” according to the Times.

“You could almost say we’re selling the kitchen with the property thrown in,” Alexander Kraft at Sotheby’s said at the time.

Makenna knew right away that “La Peetch,” as Julia called it, would make the perfect cooking school…partly because someone else had already done it. Another American named Kathie Alex (who had come to France in 1979 to take cooking classes with Simca and work as a stagiaire at the legendary Moulin de Mougins) had rented the house and taught cooking there starting in 1993. Kathie bought the property in the late 1990s and was now ready to sell.

Makenna--who describes herself as an entrepreneur, artist and business mentor—wasn’t able to fly to France to check it out herself so she sent a potential co-investor in her stead. They put in an offer and “six months later I was in France!” she remembers. “I left everything behind and more or less moved to the South of France, never having been anywhere near the Riviera!" 

"Yes, I already spoke French,” she continues. “No, I was not a chef. Just a very adept home cook who had a big idea that recipes are great in books but aren’t a great way to teach.”

She bought the property site unseen in 2015. Since then, a lot has happened for Makenna including a divorce, a new marriage and the birth of a daughter named Magnolia. And of course the launch and success of the Courageous Cooking School program which she calls an immersive and (mostly) recipe-free experience. Today she runs the business with her husband Chris Nylund and their “best friends” Kendall and Ross Lane. Kendall is the executive chef while Ross is the beverage director and “the fixer of all the things.”

People who want to experience La Peetch can do it three different ways. You can sign up for The Courageous Cooking School (a five-night, all-inclusive learning retreat), book it as a catered vacation rental (with multi-course meals catered by the staff) or, off season, rent it with family or friends and enjoy “full access to our entire batterie de cuisine and no one to bother you so you can cook up a storm!”

And now, thanks to producer Citizen Pictures (and Makenna’s unwavering belief in the project), you can see the whole delicious story unfold on TV…a poignant twist considering Julia’s own legendary TV career, which began in 1962 with her Emmy-winning series The French Chef.  

To read how coincidence, luck, "strategized opportunities" and good old perseverance finally paid off in making this show happen, see Makenna’s Instagram post here.

And then...don’t be surprised if there’s another series one day soon because Makenna just announced that she just bought a restaurant. She's sharing no details yet about what or where but stay tuned!

For More Info...

The original New York Times article is here and the story I wrote when Makenna first bought the house is here. 

You can follow Makenna in a lot of places online but some good places to start are here, here and here. 

To learn about Magnolia Network and see the new show in your country, go here and here.

Finally, to see the amazing roster of other shows produced by Citizen Pictures, click here.

Invite: Another Fine French 4th of July Fête!

Last week I told you about a 4th of July party in Provence for American expats who are Democrat...or leaning that way.  Today I’ve got another holiday invite for you...but this one is open to everyone.  One love, baby!

The American Club of the Riviera (ACR) will host a Musical Evening and Dinner on Tuesday July 4 at Castel Plage restaurant in Nice.

While enjoying a three-course dinner, you’ll be entertained by French-American soprano Amy Christianna Blake, praised by the New York Times for her beautiful singing, strong energy and stage presence.  Amy is a West-Texas native now living on the Côte d’Azur.

My peeps at the ACR tell me that Amy and her quartet of “cream of the crop” musicians will be doing Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Gershwin and more, “to carry us into that chic and svelte ambiance of the Great White Way.”  And because no "Broadway Classics" evening is complete without a few numbers à la Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Gene Kelly, dancers from the Nice Jazz Off Dance Academy have been invited to perform.

The party starts with an apero at 7:30 pm and the dress code is smart casual. Tickets are 75€ pp for ACR members and 85€ pp for guests. Please confirm your reservation as soon as possible, before Tuesday June 27th, as the event will almost certainly sell out; 80 guests are expected. Reservations can’t be confirmed without payment and there's no "pay at the door.” To book and get more info, click here. Questions? Call +33 (0)6 48 62 39 72 or email: co-president@americanclubriviera.com.

Posh and Becks are Selling in Provence

David and Victoria Beckham have listed their six-bedroom home in the Var region of Provence for €2.75 million. Marketed as "an exceptional estate in a pristine setting," the 200-acre property, Domaine Saint-Vincent, has three reception rooms, four bathrooms, staff accommodation, an infinity pool and pool house, a two-story guest house, a chapel, various outbuildings "with additional potential" and far-reaching valley views. 

The Daily Mail reports that the Beckhams bought the 19th-century home for €1.74 million in 2003 and spent €5.7 million on renovation. If it sells for its asking price, that could represent a loss of €4.6 million for the couple, who are estimated to be worth more than €500 million. 

The Daily Mail also says that the house is reportedly haunted by the former owner, who committed suicide in the study.

The reason Posh and Becks are upping sticks, however, is said to be that the couple and their four children--Brooklyn, 17; Romeo, 13; Cruz, 11; and Harper, 5--prefer to spend their time in London (where they recently spent £31 milllion on a townhouse in Holland Park) and in Los Angeles.

Other reports suggest the Beckhams are offloading real estate because they're planning to divorce.

Either way, everyone seems to agree they've hardly used the house. A story in The Sun quoted "a source": "The locals won't miss them as they were hardly ever here. When they were, David signed the odd autograph and he once had a kick-about with the villagers, but that was their only contact with them. You wouldn't have seen Victoria queuing for a croissant in the boulangerie."

Domaine Saint-Vincent is 4 km from the village of Bargemon, 23 km off the A8 motorway (exit Le Muy) and 99 km from Nice International Airport.

For all the details see the listing here... 

Uplifting Voices in Lumières and Vaison

Every summer, a group of talented singers from Nice and the UK known as the Ristretto Choir arrives in tiny, charming Lumières in the Luberon to enjoy good food and wine, the beauty of Provence, lovely warm weather and a week of intensive choral singing. This year's program will be two challenging works: "Concerto for Choir" by Alfred Schnittke (sung in Russian) and "Spem in alium" by Thomas Tallis.  Their open-to-the-public concert will be Saturday August 13 at 6 pm, in the Chapelle des Missions of the Hotellerie Notre Dame de Lumières, a very-special hotel in a former 17th-century convent. Admission to the concert is free...just show up! For a casual dinner afterwards, stroll over to Le Garage, grab an outdoor table and tuck into a terrific selection of tapas, small plates and cocktails. Lumières is just off the D900, just below the village of Goult...about 15 to 20 minutes from Gordes and the 12th-century Abbaye de Sénanque. And if you're planning an event of your own, the highly regarded Ristretto Choir and its musicians are 
available for weddings and other events. For more info: RistrettoVoices.com, choralsummer@aol.com, +33 (0)6-17-71-71-70. 

*If choral music is your thing, you probably already know about the International Choral Festival, which happens every three years in Vaison-la-Romaine...when the streets literally are filled with the sound of music. It happens every three years, in early August, and it's happening now, until Aug 11. There are classes, free concerts, paid concerts, street performers bursting into song...and much more. Check out the daily free concert at 6 pm on the Place Montfort...free concerts in the place in front of the 15th-century cathedral in the Medieval village...and the 8:30 pm paid-entry concert at the Roman theater, with sing-along. For info: choralies.fr 

Julia Child's Provence House is For Rent

Now that it's possible to rent Julia Child's old house in Provence, it's only a matter of time until someone settles into that famous kitchen, whips up some delicious new recipes and publishes a cookbook titled In Julia's Provençal Kitchen or Channeling Julia or something similar.

From the moment I heard that Sotheby's had listed the house for sale (asking price: €880,000), I had a half-real, half-ridiculous fantasy of buying it and transforming it into a cooking school. And now that's exactly what Makenna and Yvonne (Evie) Johnston have done. They swept in, snapped it up and announced they'll be offering week-long "courageous cooking" workshops there, for six people at a time, in 2017.

In the meantime they're renting the house out via Airbnb, as of June 13, 2016.  Which means that alone or in a group, you could fulfill that classic foodie fantasy of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in Julia's actual kitchen! Or, of course, write your own master work. When one of her students spied the house on Airbnb, food writer Molly O'Neill quickly booked it--along with another next door--for two one-week writers' retreats in October. (Molly is a former NY Times food columnist, author of six books, a multiple James Beard Award winner and founder of LongHouse Food Revival. For info: molly@cooknscribble.com.)

I'm so delighted that Julia's old digs--the summer home she loved so much--will continue to be a magnet for French food- and wine-lovers!

In reality this isn't the first time the house will be used as a cooking school.  In 1993, Kathie Alex, who knew and worked for Julia, took it over and ran a program there called Cooking with Friends in France.  She put it on the market in November 2015.

The story beyond the house--how Julia and Paul Child came to have it, who hung out with them there, why it was important to the whole American food revolution--has been well documented so I won't go too deeply into that here.  (If  the topic interests you, you'd love Julia's book My Life in France and as well as Provence 1970 by Luke Barr, which you can read about here.)

The house is called La Pitchoune ("the little one") but everyone calls it La Pitch or La Peetch. It was built in 1963, on a property belonging to Simone Beck, one of Julia's original cookbook collaborators. M.F.K. Fisher and James Beard were frequent guests. It's set amongst the olive groves near the villages of Châteauneuf and Plascassier,  not far from Cannes and Grasse.  (Not that Châteauneuf...but one of many villages with the same name.)

Makenna and Evie say that La Peetch Ecole de Cuisine will be more than just a cooking school. It will also welcome high-end retreats, family experiences, food and wine journeys and more. 

The Airbnb listing calls it "a space to cook, commune, explore and walk in the footsteps of the culinary greats." On Facebook they call it "A Center for Food, Culture and Community." 

Evie, a former U.S. Air Force captain who left the military in 2014,  is now studying at the International Culinary Center in New York. Makenna, a business strategist and life coach, will train at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, where Julia earned Le Grand Diplôme in 1951. (Like Julia did, Makenna graduated from Smith College in Northampton, MA.) 

The house has three antique-filled bedrooms, a sitting room, gardens, a pool...and of course that famous kitchen, which is virtually intact. Even Julia's pegboard is still there, the one Paul made and painted with outlines so Julia knew exactly which implements went where. The only thing missing is Julia's beloved white La Cornue stove, which now belongs to that other famous American cookbook author and cooking teacher in Provence, Patricia Wells. 

So of course I had to ring up Patricia to ask how she got Julia's stove.  "When the time came for Paul and Julia to give up La Pitchoune," she told me, "I asked her if I could buy it and she said no. Then she changed her mind and said I could have it as a gift, as long as I replaced it. So that’s what we did! We went to Darty, bought a new stove, went to her house, took the La Cornue and replaced it with the new one, which I believe is still the one in the house."

The La Cornue has two gas burners, a side burner where you can set a series of pots and a small, single gas oven. If you have Patricia's most-recent book, The French Kitchen Cookbook,  you'll see it in there. "The oven is bit cantankerous," Patricia reports, "and it's very difficult to adjust the heat so we don't use it often. But we definitely use the cooktop with our students, who of course love to cook on it. I always joke that having Julia's stove is a bit like having Freud's couch!"

As to what Julia would say about all this, I have no idea. I met her a few times over the years at food-world events but didn't know her. So I turned to someone who did,  my old pal Bob Spitz. Bob is the author of Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child and he's currently putting final touches on the script for a one-woman show of Dearie, which will open on Broadway early next year.

"Julia always filled La Peetch with friends and guests," Bob says, "so I’m sure it would delight her that the house was continuing her gracious tradition.  The fact that it will live on as a cooking school and retreat would be the icing on her, well, Reine de Saba.”  

Want to know more? Check out the stories on La Peetch in Vogue,  Conde Nast Traveler and People, then go to Lapeetch.com, where you can sign up for email updates.

Photos: (1) Julia's famously colorful Provence kitchen has been kept (almost completely) intact. Rent the house and have it all to yourself...or come take a weeklong "courageous cooking" workshop next year. (2) In the kitchen at La Pitchoune, Paul Child painted outlines of Julia’s tools and equipment on the pegboard walls. [Photo by Benoit Peverelli, courtesy of Luke Barr.]  (3) Julia Child on the terrace at La Pitchoune in the early 1970s, courtesy Luke Barr. (4-8) Interior and exterior shots of the house. Makenna says "Our goal is to maintain the house as much as possible, we have no intentions to remodel or update the house itself.  But we definitely are updating some elements of decor, including furniture and linens." (9) Julia's old La Cornue range now lives with Patricia Wells at her home and cooking school in Vaison-la-Romaine, Provence. Owning it, Patricia says, is like "having Freud's couch." (10) Julia at La Pitchoune in 1969. [Photo by Marc Riboud/Magnum Photos, from the Wall Street Journal.]

In Chicago, Sleep in Van Gogh's Bedroom

If somehow you're lucky enough to snag a reservation, you could spend the night in a startlingly realistic recreation of Van Gogh's bedroom...not in the South of France but in a doorman high-rise in Chicago's River North neighborhood.

The room was commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago, in conjunction with their new show, Van Gogh's Bedrooms. The show and the nearby room officially open today and will remain intact until May 10. 

The museum exhibit focuses on Van Gogh's "quest for home" and, in particular, the three paintings the made of his bedroom in the Yellow House in Arles during 1888 and 1889. The famous Dutch artist moved 37 times in his short 37-year life.

The show features all three of the famous paintings, one on loan from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, one from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and the third from the Art Institute's own collection. More than 30 additional works--and a scale replica of the bedroom--round out the exhibit, with large screens scrolling images and text from Van Gogh's letters and sketchbooks, and music tying it all together. 

Those who do get to book the room will pay just $10 for the night...with tickets to the show thrown in. The rental is listed on Airbnb here and written in Van Gogh's voice; the photos are fantastic so have a look whether you actually want to stay here or not. If you do, good luck with that: the first block of nights were snapped up immediately and you'll need to check the museum's social media channels, such as Twitter and Facebook, to find out when more will be released.

From a publicity standpoint alone, the rental room was pretty genius, generating enormous press for the museum exhibit in the Guardian, Adweek, the New York Post and Today.com, just to name a few. 

"It's sort of crazy how excited people are over the project," said Glenn Ragaishis in the Chicago Tribune; he oversaw the room's fabrication at Ravenswood Studio, the local company that, more typically, builds sets for Lyric Opera and other theater companies. 

"Who wouldn't want to spend the night inside a painting of a rustic garret that once belonged to a suicidal Dutch post-impressionist?" asks Jezebel.com (which goes on to call the room "cramped and creepy" looking).

The rental, equipped with cable and Wi-Fi, will remain intact until the exhibition's May 10 closing. 

The first overnight guest, staying tonight, will be Robby Sexton, the Art Institute's social media manager. His goal, he says, when he writes about his stay on the museum's Facebook page and elsewhere, "will be to make people feel as jealous as possible."

Other nights have been reserved for "social influencers," artists and bloggers, who will of course be chronicling the experience.

"We hope it's a way to bring fresh eyes and fresh perspective to the painting, which has long been an icon of our permanent collection," says the Art Institute's Amanda Hicks.

To watch a short, touching video in which curator Gloria Groom explains why having a bedroom of his own was so important to Van Gogh, click here.

To learn more about Van Gogh and the paintings, you might enjoy the Vogue.com story. 

And for all the show details, visit the Art Institute website here.

Photos: (1) The recreated "Bedroom in Arles," in Chicago's River North, is  theoretically rentable on Airbnb for $10 per night. Follow the Art Institute on Twitter and Facebook to find out when. (2) The room is an amalgamation of the three paintings Van Gogh did of his bedroom; all three are in Chicago for the show. Pictured is one from 1889.  

A New Cooking School In Provence

To celebrate a birthday this winter, my friend Susan invited a couple lucky friends to join her for a few days in Paris. One of the highlights of our fantastic weekend was an evening at Cook’n with Class, the popular French cooking school in Montmartre. We took the “Chef’s Table: Food & Wine Pairing Class.” Perched around a large table, chef Alex Dreyer prepared a stellar, multi-course dinner for us while discussing the prep of each dish. Perfect wines were poured by the equally perfect young sommelier Preston Mohr.  It was a wonderful evening capped by a madcap spin down the Champs-Élysées to photograph the famous Christmas lights.

So when I found out that the school’s owner, chef Eric Fraudeau, was planning to open a second school in Provence, I was delighted.  And a month or so ago, Eric emailed to say Cook’n with Class was now fully up and running near the village of Uzès. Good choice, Eric!  Uzès is one of those magical, historic places that everybody seems to love. (The school is actually in Arpaillargues, five kilometres from the village itself, in front of the organic wine producer Deleuze et Rochetin.)

“We benefit from our proximity to St Quentin-la-Poterie, Nîmes, Avignon, Aix-en-Provence and Montpellier,” Eric says, “and from the fantastic markets in and around Uzès. What a wonderful location from which to embark on a taste of Provence and the Mediterranean!”

Eric—who was born in Poitiers and raised in La Rochelle—has 30 years of restaurant and hotel experience...in France, Mexico, Canada and the US.

He runs the school with his charming wife Yetunde Oshodi-Fraudeau, who hails originally from Nigeria but grew up in New York State. She graduated from Cornell (in social psychology), went to culinary school and worked for various French companies in NYC. The couple met in Chicago while both were with Accor Hotels: he as exec chef at the Sofitel Montréal, she in marketing and operations.

The couple lived together in Paris for eight years before moving to the South of France (to the Herault, between Beziers and Narbonne) in 2011.

One day they stumbled on Uzès, where Yetunde turned to a friend and said “I really like this place. I can see myself here.” To which the friend replied, “I could see you here too” ... and something clicked.

“It was love at first sight,” Eric remembers.

They came back three times, each time talking with locals to find out what the area was like as a place to live, to cook, to teach and to raise a family. “I’m not someone who does things on a whim!” Yetunde says.  Finally, they made the move in January.

The space they chose for the new school is next door to the antiques-filled Musée 1900, in what had been a showroom for the company Patin et Patine, which does “relooking” of antique furniture. “It’s a fantastic location,” Yetunde says, “and its spirit fit our spirit exactly. It was just so charming that I could easily see the Cook’n with Class Uzès school here, surrounded by vineyards and the museum.”

Renovation began in April, at what Eric calls “a rather leisurely (southern) pace.”

“You just can't rush anything around here!” he continues. "Anyone who’s ever been involved with renovation or construction will tell you to always tack on some extra time (weeks), to be sure that you get what you were actually hoping for (sort of). So while we’ve been all go go go, we had to patiently (or not so patiently) wait for things to be finished. But then the season kicked off with a bang.” 

The new school is now offering four types of day classes, all of them taught in English: French Market Classes, Seafood Classes, Wine & Cheese Pairing Classes and private and customized classes. You can see them all—and sign up easily—on the beautifully organized website here. 

And a program called A Week in Uzes invites food lovers of all levels to partake in an intensive French cuisine experience. In 2017, sessions will be offered April 23 to 30; May 27 to June 3; June 18 to 25; Sept 9 to 16; Sept 17 to 24; and Oct 1 to 8. See more info here.

In Paris, Eric uses a roster of different chefs to lead the classes but for the time being, he’s doing all the teaching in Uzès. In the Wine & Cheese class, he’s assisted by sommelier Frederic Duverger of Cannes You Taste, a good friend and a former colleague.  Additional classes—possibly taught by guest chefs—may come down the road. Plans are already in progress for a week-long program for B&B owners who want to prepare food for their own guests; more info on that will come this fall.

Day classes range in price from 80€ to 150€; kids are welcome and pay less. A private class for up to four people is 500€; additional students are 100€ each with a max of seven people total. Discounts are offered after your first class at either school in Paris or Uzès.

“I love to cook and even with all my travels, French cuisine is still my first love,” Eric says. “Whether you cook with us in Paris or here on the doorstep of Provence, we hope to take you on a culinary foodie adventure in a fun, convivial setting...one where you'll feel at home. We shop together, we cook together, we eat together. Generosity is our motto and hospitality is our forte.”

Cook’n With Class Uzès

Chemin du Moulin (Musée 1900)

Arpaillargues-et-Aureillac

30700 France

Tel: +33 (0)4 66 01 35 15
CooknwithClass-Uzes

info-uzes@cooknwithclass.com

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Photos: (1,) The school opened in June, 5 km from Uzès. It's in the Languedoc-Roussillon, which is not officially Provence, but never mind--it's close enough. (2) Yetunde and Eric love cooking together. In this photo, Yetunde is pregnant with baby Oluremi--Remi for short--who was born in 2013.  (3-6) Eric teaching, marketing, plating and tucking in. (7) French Market Classes begin with outdoor-market shopping. (8, 9) For the new school, Eric and Yetunde chose a charming location next door to Le Musée 1900. Museum owner Baron Gaston traveled around France over several decades to source his unique collection of 20th-century antiques, cars, bikes, tools and toys. Outdoors, the site has real train tracks and was designed to resemble a train station.  (10) Inside the museum, Remi's ready to take a spin.

Cannes Fireworks Festival Starts Tonight

The annual Cannes International Fireworks Festival kicks off tonight, to celebrate La Fête Nationale or Le Quatorze Juillet. As in years past, the huge display will be launched from three barges in the bay facing the Croisette and I hear that the synchronization of music and fireworks is extraordinary. Shows begin around 10 pm and last 30 minutes. The fest is run as a competition among top pyrotechnic teams from around the world.

Six shows will be featured throughout the summer. To open the competition tonight, Azerbaijan will be represented by the Baku Firework Group. The festival continues on Tuesday July 21st (Poland), Thursday July 30th (France, the group called Intermede), Friday August 7th (Great Britain), Saturday August 15 (Argentina) and Monday August 24 (France again, with the company called Prestatech). For all the info including an access map, click here.

As in years past, the American Club of the Riviera will host a reception and dinner during the festival...this year it's August 15. They've reserved at one of Cannes' best beach restaurants for the event, the 3.14 Plage Beach, located very centrally opposite the Carlton Hotel. The evening starts at 8 pm with a welcome drink and nibbles, followed by a three-course dinner including wines, mineral water and coffee. Prices: 90€ for members; 97€ for non-members;  40€ for children. This event will almost certainly sell out so reserve your spot early by clicking here. No payments will be accepted at the door. Questions? Contact Burton: +33 (0) 6 20 40 11 28 or president@americanclubriviera.com.

Finally, if you're just looking for a place to have a drink and watch the fireworks, the 3.14 Plage Beach offers a lounge chair and a welcome drink for 15€ per person. They're fully booked for tonight but may have space for future evenings. You need to call +33 (0) 4 93 94 25  a couple days in advance to reserve and arrive by 9 pm to get your spot.

Photos: Scenes from fireworks past...and the restaurant called 3.14 Plage, where the American Club of the Riviera will host their party on August 15.

Whale and Dolphin Cruise Season Has Begun

Did you guys know there were whales and dolphins in the Mediterranean? Me neither...until I learned that every Sunday, Decouverte du Vivant offers Naturalist Discovery Cruises aboard the boat La Croix du Sud V to get up close and personal with them. During the nine-hour voyage you're likely to see striped dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, Risso's dolphins, pilot whales, sperm whales and the second largest animal on the planet, the fin whale. You can also expect seabirds, sunfish, loggerhead turtles, bluefin tuna, bonito and swordfish. Last Sunday, guests on the cruise saw eight whales. The season ends in October.

Cruises depart from Sanary sur Mer in the Var at 8:45 am and return at 6:30 pm. Prices are 55€ (under 13), 66€ (students and teens), 78€ (adult) and on demand for groups.  The same company also offers cruises from Canet-en-Roussillon (whales and dolphins, April to October, Saturdays only), Port Vendres (dolphins, July and August, Wednesdays only) and La Grande Motte (sea birds, September to May). 

Découverte du Vivant is an eco-responsible whale-watching operator, involved in the long- term preservation of the cetacean populations of the Mediterranean Sea. For more info or to reserve, click here, call +33 6 10 57 17 11 or email: info@decouverteduvivant.fr